After watching the game between Loughgall Lakers and Glentoran/Belfast United at Loughgall Country Park last night I promised I’d give a special mention to the girls who played out a hard fought match which finished in a 3-1 victory to the Belfast side. Even better than that I’ll give them a guest column on State of the Game as we continue to expand our coverage of the beautiful game across as many diverse clubs and leagues as possible.

Some great skill and movement and a few tackles that would have had most men’s teams cringing really helped show the leaps and bounds the ladies game in Northern Ireland continues to take and I’m looking forward to watching a lot more of it this season as I follow Loughgall Lakers in their attempts to gain promotion.

The special mentions for Lakers will go to Claire Rooney who put her head in where it really hurt and walked off with a suspected broken nose and debut girl Cathy Thompson who fired home the Lakers’ goal from the edge of the box. The girls will be hoping for a lot more of the latter and no more of the former as they continue their progress but they knew they were in a game after coming off last night with the physical Belfast side using every trick in the book to make their presence felt. Two late goals from Tolan finished off a brave Lakers fightback after losing Rooney but they can take great pride in the quality of their defending overall and their pacey attack will cause some problems for defences all over the league this season.

More details as the games wear on and I get caught up on some more of the players’ names